With Me
by fin du globe
Summary: "The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy." –—Jim Rohn. The Potter kids, Rose, Teddy and Scorpius learn to reach past all those glass walls.


**With Me **by patchworkteddy

Once upon a time, in an undisclosed, extremely top-secret location in the Hogwarts castle, a horrible incident was taking place. It all started, in the Potions lab, on this seemingly innocuous day…

"This… This is madness!" Rose spluttered desperately, balancing precariously on the rocking stool in her determination to not drown in the spreading pool of HTML and spam now swirling around the shut lab.

Her cousin cackled madly, in a way that suggested that marijuana could now be attached to w-mails (Rose made a mental note to check, and then permanently disable Lily's connection to the Wiz-Net, and then her too). "THIS… IS… HOGWARTS!"

"This is what you _get _when I tell you _not _to do freaky experiments in the freakin' _Potions lab _and _you don't listen to me_!" the taller girl yelled, as the chair started to tilt _just so_. Her foot slid off the battered wood, and very nearly got sucked into the maelstrom of… whatever. Sometimes, things are just too vulgar, pixilated and just _plain odd_ to put names to.

Obviously not listening, the Slytherin, who was squatting on the cold, stone floor, knee-deep in all that madness (which the Ravenclaw would have suspected was borne from the fourth-year's mind, if not for the conclusion that the pool would otherwise be even _more _unmanageable, chaotic and redundant), merely plucked a small, glass phial which contained a heavily doctored image macro, liquefied via extremely obscene things which shall not be stated here, in order not to offend kittens.

"This," she proclaimed, with a widening Chesire cat grin that set off Rose's alarm bells all over again, "Is the final ingredient. The key ingredient…" Her Colgate-advert-type teeth shone as she smiled in that creepy manner that would be like a clown pulling parsley out of his nose while stabbing you viciously with sporks, all the while kicking cats and making them say grammatically incorrect 'sentences' (don't ask – bad dream).

"Lily…" Rose warned/begged/pleaded/okay let's go with begged with the whine-ness of Eeyore… with a moustache. "Think about the consequences!"

That seemed to make Lily hesitate for a second, as she pondered over the would-be obviously utterly _devastating _results of her stupid, ridiculous, irrelevant—

"Okay, thought about it," she told her cousin, then went back to happily dumping the key ingredient (which, in case you have forgotten, is not a key, but things that should be censored, and then have the censors censored, and… you get the idea) into the now-swamp… thing. If this was a movie, this action would immediately cue overly-dramatic, ominous music, but since this is Hogwarts, nobody really gives a shit (which was why they had managed to sneak into the lab in the first place, for Merlin's sake people, _keep up_!).

Also, Lily did not like clichés, unless they were peppered – um, _heavily dosed_ with misspelled expletives, and koalas steamy-ly making love to giraffes and/or deer.

Or gay porn (but we'll talk about that later, hopefully not).

Now, since this was Hogwarts, and nobody really gives a shit, unless some rich person out there wrote a biography about some angst-ridden, 'LOL Slytherins are gay', non-pimply wizard. Who was not a redhead.

Fortunately (or bananately, depending on how your ears deal with this virius – er, uhm… recount), dropping the key ingredient into the mixture had proven correct (although how in the world was that correct we'll never know, and frankly prefer not to know), and because (insert long, ramble-y five-feet long essay on chemical reactions and blah blah blah), the mixture curdled and clumped up into a rubbery, tight, conglomerate of odd bits, before—

"_KA-BLAM_!"

—blowing up and evaporating into a misty cloud of smoke coloured a colour too obscene and eye-blinding to be described!

"Oh, you can make explosions? Tell me all about your plans to be a pyrotechnician."

Rose clapped her hands over her mouth, from which a condescending, faux-smile-type, and _downright rude_ sentence had previously spouted from.

"Lils. So, you can make a room-full of potion? How useful it must be." The sixth-year promptly started banging her head against the desk.

"I knew it! I'm a genius! You've started speaking in memes! And considering it's supposed to get worse and worse, it ain't bad for a start. Though, Condescending Wonka never was a favourite…"

Gesticulating wildly in an attempt to express herself, Rose scrambled for a scrap of paper, then scribbled hastily on it. "Why aren't _you _affected! And do you mean _everyone's_ gonna end up doing something meme-ish and… Oh, you like memes? Tell me about how you've always been a big fan."

While the other witch grappled with her spasming hand, biting her lip to a) prevent spillage of Foul and Filthy Words and b) not speak in memes, they aren't quite cream, Lily cackled madly again.

"Isn't it _obvious_! I've been hit with 'God Modding'! I know everything! Also, I have an inflated ego, and as you are a puny and weak person, I shall not grant you the glory of my answers."

Suddenly, Scorpius Malfoy rushed in at an entirely random time, but also because I'm not eager to spend 3487192458612945 words on a filler.

Also, Scorpius Malfoy is kind of hot.

Damn… _Obliviate_!

Anyway, as I was saying, the blonde ran into the room, looking completely frazzled – his hair was mussed up and some strands were even sticking up, his clothes were all rumpled and his tie was loose (yeah, I know what you're thinking – I am too).

"Rose, Rose," he gabbled in a frenzy, since they were suddenly the best of friends. I'm kidding – they're both prefects, didn't you know? "Rose, crap, you better come, Al's acting weird—"

Just as the last word rolled off his (gorgeous, lickable – uh, I mean, err…) tongue, his foot sank into the gloopy mess of puce-coloured residue that coated the floor. He promptly slipped, landing face first in the Carriedburn Sea of doom, technified.

"Oh, so you're on the Quidditch team? Glad to see you're highly coordinated," the meme-inflicted girl blurted out. Scorpius' hand flopped down next to his prone body, before he slowly crawled up, the disgusting glue clinging to his skin and clothes. His face seemed to have been dipped into a Hagrid-sized cup of ketchup, red as it was, and not Mysterious Exploding Oddity of Witch Potter da Weelie.

"Wait, you mean apart from how he's been avoiding you recently?" Lily raised her eyebrows at Scorpius, who was (very obviously) trying to keep from staring at Rosie.

"Oh, uh, um, well," he stammered (if this was Fountain of Fortune I would totally charge him for those commas, you know?). "Yeah. Like, all that weird smoky stuff was everywhere, and well, Al…" He paused, before saying the rest in a single, rushed breath – "Altriedtomolestme."

Rose's jaw had a joyful reunion with the ground. Lily thought; _oh well, at least awkward silences are free_. Scorpius ought to have been skinned, ground, processed, and made into blusher – imagine the galleons.

"Oh, so you've had people pedo-ing you? How HAWT you think you must be," said a drawling voice that… wasn't completely unexpected.

Scorpius slowly turned around to face the irate girl clamping her fingertips around her lips. His shoulders started to shake, his lips trembled, tears pricked the side of his eyes and—

"Daddy!" he squealed like a little girl, lunging for Rose to glomp her, causing them both to subsequently slam into the ground, "Daddy! I've missed you so much! Of course you would've Polyjuiced into my classmate, I don't know why I didn't think of that _earlier_! You can come home now, the Minister isn't mad at you for wanking all over his collection of topless Aurors calendars anymore!"

A deathly silence blanketed over the atmosphere, save for Malfoy (yep, Malfoy now) making those piggy-like sounds, and the slip-slapping sounds of Lily facepalming herself. With a real palm tree.

(I didn't know that was possible…)

She turned her face (which now had a single streak of red running from her chin to her sleek, red hair), and mouthed to Rose, eyes wide, "_Awkward_."

The long-haired girl had her face screwed up in dismay, as her eyes bounced back and forth between her cousin, and friend.

"Help me here!" the sixth year mouthed desperately, only halfway her mouth twisted funnily and convulsed, attempting to spout something condescendingly unfunny.

Lily sighed, stalked over, jerked Scorpius' head back and Obliviated him. A dazed look overtook his expression for several seconds (during which Rose started headdesking again), before he snapped out of it and, confused, asked Lily, "Uh, what were we doing again?"

Lily smiled (_sinisterly_, I _swear_), and told him cheerfully, "Why, you were just telling us about Al's attempts to rape you!"

This caused Rose to throw up in the corner as Malfoy resumed to looking as though he had just emerged freshly dipped from a pool of steaming lava. That was roasting red bean buns.

"Look," he managed to choke out, "Maybe it'd be better if you could see yourself…"

Thus, the motley trio, led by the wealth, but utterly traumatised Mr. Malfoy, made their way to the Great Hall, going on a perilous quest to take down the notorious, heinous criminal known as Albus Pedobear Potter! They plowed through marshes and desserts, battled enemies courageously, and—

Alright, alright, I'll get to the point.

Anyway, the three of them reached the Great Hall, short of breath at the pace they were running. Suddenly, Scorpius, who was in front, dug his heels into the floor, skidding to a halt, causing the two girls behind him to crash into his back. Wait, you thought that only happened in movies? Nah.

"Scorpius!" Lily hissed, annoyed, as she rubbed the bump that her forehead was giving birth to with the heel of her hand, "What the hell are you doin'?" When the boy only gave a startled 'meep!' in response, she peeked over his shoulder, and doubled over, spewing blood onto the ground.

Okay, so she didn't exactly do that, but close enough.

See, the thing was, when you happen to spot your older brother snogging the hell out of his – technically speaking, even a mirror would do it – boyfriend/friend/classmate/whatever against the wall, you would also kind of reenact three-dimensional burping.

"I'm a freaking god! Why didn't I see this coming!"

At the sound of his baby sister's voice, Albus Severus turned away from his victim and grinned wolfishly (I know! I didn't even know that was _possible_!). "Oh hai there Lils, whatcha doin' here?"

"Just… No. No freaking way, Al – I mean, YOU HAVE JUST TURNED INTO A WALKING R-RATED MOVIE!"

"Oh, so you can watch R-rated movies? Tell me about how mature—"

"Shut the freak up, Rosie!" Lily cried as she tackled her suddenly flirty brother to the ground. "The heck is going on here?"

"C-c-could he have been hit by the weird ma-magic you w-were doing, L-Li – uh, Potter?" Scorpius sputtered.

"I don't—" she started to respond, but then Al's gaze met Scorpius', who immediately shrank back.

"Why, Scorpius! I didn't know you were here! It's quite crowded around here, fancy having a quick shag in a broom closet?"

The blonde boy shrieked like a little girl discovering the terror of circus clowns (they _are_ scary!), before rushing off in refuge, to the remaining Slytherin's (very obvious) disappointment.

"This is weird…" Lily murmured, trying to subdue a struggling Al, who was yelling out pick-up phrases at passing people. "Al's never been so touchy-feely, he's even acting all perverted. And Scorpius has been acting so shy and awkward around Rose and me…" She trailed off, her hands stilling for a moment, the realisation dawning on her…

"Oh, so you can have epiphanies? Tell me about how you're Archimedes' descendent."

"That's it! I knew it, since I _am _a God mod, but whatever – I understand now!"

This overly-dramatic and extremely loud outburst attracted the attention of a passing James Sirius Potter, who stopped in his tracks to lop over merrily, hands jammed into the pockets of his crumpled, sloppy jeans.

"Hello, there, fair folks of—" he began, but Lily cut him off with her infamous, high-pitched shrill shrieking, "Not _now _you idiot!" just as the Slytherin pinned beneath her in a compromising position yelled out to his brother, "Hey James, do you mind getting some rope, and could you help me tie up Malfoy? I heard it turns him on."

James had the look of a person who would rather trim Voldemorgue's claw-like toenails… thing.

"No, it turns _you _on, you bloody pervert. What the hell happened to the same Al who kicked up a big fuss about holding hands back in fourth year?" James turned onto Lily accusingly, because if there is one thing he has learned since the whole Lily Grows Up episode, it's that a) one should never trust Lily, b) it's always her fault and c) even if it wasn't her fault, you can still blame her anyway. And that, by default, makes it _also_ her fault.

"W-ell…" Lily dragged out the vowels, letting go of her brother's shoulders to apprehensively face her other brother. "I… might have… caused an explosion that released some… to put it mildly… mind and personality altering substances…"

Rose briefly concluded that the only reason Lily bothered to expand her vocabulary was for easy paraphrasing that would 'soften the blow'.

If that was possible.

"Lily!" James shook her by the shoulders, aghast. And you would be too, if your younger brother who buttoned his shirts up till the collar and couldn't even talk in front of the people he liked suddenly turned into a kinky pervert, no thanks to your younger sister who was a pervert to start with.

I mean, porn. Not just porn, but _koala _porn? Like, who's that heartless?

"Lily. Y U NO MORE CAREFUL!"

"…and apparently it got you too," Lily frowned as James' jaw fell upon. He bent his neck, his eyes scanning the floor, and indeed, a plume of muggy, metallic-looking jell-o was creeping across the floor. It had wrapped a slimy hand around his ankles, and more of the gloop was pooling at Lily's feet.

"This," Rose managed to choke out, after a few minutes of struggle beforehand, "Was what I wanted to warn you about. Also, Al's escaped."

"Oh shit."

"We're screwed."

Glances were exchanged worriedly, before the idea that they _might _get expelled and that they _might_ get skinned alive by one Harry and Ginny Potter and Hermione Weasley.

"…we're getting Teddy."

Which was the natural solution to everything.

James always did forget step two – fix the problem, even though you had _nothing _to do with it.

He then sort of coloured up and muttered something about getting Professor Brown instead, like, I mean, we don't really have to bother Teddy, and he's our professor, even if he's still a trainee, and we should respect him and Lily _Y U NO STOP MAKING WEIRD POTIONS?_

"Lily Luna Potter! What – what – what is this!"

_Speak of the devil_, Lily mouthed to Rose, who was staring at James intently. And indeed, looking up, they could clearly discern their godbrother amongst the haze of utter pandemonium that involved people starting to react to the potion…

"Oh no…" Lily murmured, in dismay.

And in dismay she was – for Teddy Lupin was lurching unsteadily towards them, a wall of bricks literary shrouded around his body like some… brick-constructed cloak. Only his eyes could be seen.

"Merlin, Te – Professor, what's… all… _this_?" James' jaw fell open.

"You tell me! Lily Luna, you _did _something _again_, right?"

"You Don't Say?" Her eyes narrowed into curved slits, opposite of her curved lips.

"…shitshitshit. The effects must increase over time… Better drink my own piss." James was surprised at what just came out from his mouth. Teddy stared at him in abject horror.

"BITCH PLEASE." Lily rolled her eyes uncontrollably.

"If you drink your own piss, does that mean you piss out Butterbeer?" Rose wondered out loud, a finger tapping at her chin thoughtfully.

"No, I actually hate Philosophator," Teddy said randomly, groping at the brick wall with his hands, in an attempt to free himself. "Argh… Brick wall… Y U NO COME OFF?"

"I used to like Philosophator. But then I took an arrow to the knee," James commented absentmindedly, as he tried to tug his feet out of the sticky sea that would have made Lewis Carroll and the original Marauders proud.

"Oh no, the potion must have evaporated into the air! That's why it's spreading so quickly…" Lily started to seriously freak out now. "I don't even _understand_ how this happened – it wasn't quite supposed to go like this…"

"What if," Teddy started to say in a deeply thoughtful, serious, and utterly grave voice, "What if this is all a video game, and our HTMLs are simply malfunctioning?"

…

Wa-a-ait, whaaaaat?

"Okay, that's it, we _really _need a professor now," Lily groaned, like, three bloody pages late. Everyone spun their head around, and in synchronism, yelled, "YOU DON'T SAY!"

(Three beating-ups and a kabillion bruises later…)

"Look, we'll have to go get Al first, or he'll—"

"Oh, so you can make plans now? How reliable and intelligent you must be—"

"BITCH PLEASE. ROSE, SHUT THE HELL UP. As I was saying, we're going to get Al first, or he'll start raping little children while pedosmiling. Then—"

"I used to rape little children. Then I took an arrow to the knee."

"Jamie, you shut up too—wait, _WHAAAAAT_?" Lily promptly dropped her wand, which she had been using to illustrate diagrams of a dissected computer… pro…sessure – yeah – in the air.

"I bet he couldn't pedo as many people as Al did in this _one _day, though," Teddy bit out, glaring hostilely at the youngest Potter, who threw her quill at him.

James immediately stood up.

"Oh no," Lily breathed. "Please don't tell me…"

"CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!" James declared loudly, before speeding off at the speed of… you know, how pedobear runs when he sees ickle children/le coppers.

If it weren't for the inappropriateness of the situation, and the horrid, putrid background, not to mention the overall un-glam-ness of 'em all, Lily would have wanted to take a photograph of them all facepalming at the same time. I mean, synchrony – it ain't that easy, bud.

"Let's go," Teddy groaned, dragging his brick-cloak thing, and two girls with him as he staggered forward in a drunken manner, slowly chasing Jamsie-boy at the speed of a light-year – you know, the time taken for the light to light up in Lily's head.

(Cough cough.)

Of course, they certainly did not expect the scene that would await them.

"Holy shit, man," Rose murmured weakly, aghast.

Lily felt the need to bleach her eyes.

Suddenly, Teddy felt incredibly thankful for the brick walls.

James looked up from printing hickeys onto a squirming Scorpius' neck, and Al turned away from passionately licking the poor boy's earlobe from the other side, an odd sort of sandwich jammed into a broom closet.

"Do you guys mind?" Al called out irritably, "We're thinking of getting to shagging soon."

"Oh Merlin please help me," Scorpius mouthed desperately. Lily almost pitied him.

Almost.

"Y'know, if 'shagging' means to have sex, does 'shaggy' mean sexy?" Rose asked the thick air.

"The shit is this," Teddy muttered, complete pissed off. "The SHIT IS THIS, JAMES SIRIUS POTTER! I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT WHATEVER POTION'S CAUSING THIS, BUT YOU DO NOT SIMPLY GO AROUND SNOGGING THE VIRGINITY OUT OF PEOPLE'S MOUTHS!" He was roaring now, utterly enraged, and the winds seemed to howl in his crescendo, as thunderstorms circled his might, gigantic figure, the God of—

Okay, you get the point.

"Merlin, Teddy, calm down!" Lily yelped, jumping in between the two lean boys – at the same time as James proclaimed, louder than a loudhailer, "CHAAAAALLEEEEENGE ACCEPTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEDDDD!"

And quite quickly pounced on Teddy, slamming his back into the wall, all of the bricks crumbling into dust from the impact, before performing an extremely graphic, NV30 display of tongue porn.

(NV30 = No Virgins Over 30. That means you, Ms. Parkinson.

…wait, you're not?)

Then, all of a sudden, Scorpius darted out from the tucked-away broom closet, gallantly taking Rose's hand as he kneeled down on a single knee.

"Rose… Their displays of affection have gotten me… And I realise, now, how short life is! Rose, my sweet, my dearest, the secret chamber to my Basilisk, the You-Know to my Who, the glasses to my Potterverse, the manuscripts to my Grangerism, the cuisine to my Weasleyness! Be mine, and only mine; be my lover, Rose Weasley, I beseech you!"

Lily turned her gaze towards the unsightly vision of her godbrother and brother doing obscenely unmentionable things with one of the stickiest structures of human anatomy.

She turned it back towards Scorpius Malfoy babbling to Rosie about their _future_. _Together_.

There were several things she was absolutely sure of.

One, she needed to get more ellipses.

Two, she needed to gouge her eyes out, and while she was at it, do a Van Gough.

Three, she sure as hell was a bloody better narrator than that bird – was it a swan? – yeah.

Her stare reverted to the stunned Al, who simply stood there, rooted to the ground, his eyes practically burning holes into Scorpius' back.

"Oh, so we're meant to be?" Rose's hand involuntarily travelled to her hip, her head cocked at a mocking angle. "Tell me more about your originality. And credibility."

…and just like that everything sort of clicked into place.

And this was definitely a valid reason to grab the back of your brother's head, and smash his face against the face of his freshly-rejected, starting to weep like a baby best friend.

Immediately, the goo started to vanish, first in little patches here and there, then as though a giant's hand was scooping it all out. The effects started to diminish – Rosie's mouth was no longer twitching like she had a seizure, all the bricks had disappeared, and Lily felt quite normal, if not her brain shrinking.

Sad thought, that was.

"Um… You guys? You can… stop now…" Rose hesitantly stammered out the sentence to the currently _very_ preoccupied couples.

"Oh, let them be. Looks like something's good come out of all that hoo-hah, yeah?" Lily grinned, and taking Rose's hand, they shoved Albus and Scorpius into the very same broom closet, before walking off into the sunset, like in all those inspirational movies, singing #ForeverAlone songs...

"But I do wonder, what happened to the potion, Lils?" Rose asked curiously, swinging their arms in rhythm to their steps. Lily stopped, almost causing Rose to trip from the abrupt halt. The younger girl slowly turned to face her cousin, and bluntly said—

"I rigged it."

"Whaaaat?"

Lily's fingers intertwining with the taller girl's, she drags her to the fountain in the middle of the garden, where they can sit on the edge to chat, while the languorous ballad of music trickles beat-by-beat in the background. Once Rose doubtfully takes a seat, Lily begins to speak.

"It was my plan, from the start you know. I calculated the odds, and figured that if I did this, I could make us all happy – Teddy would finally be shoved to accepting his feelings for James, and Jamie would realise that Teddy _does_ like him. Al would stop avoiding Scorpius, realising how much he likes him. Scorpius didn't know he himself liked Al to start with. I mean, I couldn't know _exactly _what would happen, I only guessed, I figured some of the things would be attracted to the person according to personality. I had lied about the whole God Mod thing, you know? I didn't know how to stop that thing, really. I only guessed because I remembered the key ingredient." She grins, before cheekily laughing, her lovely laugh echoing in the garden.

"It was those drawings James had of Teddy in his notebook. So I figured, I just needed a show of affection of greater magnitude to cause the thing to rip itself apart.

But Al getting hit with pedobear, James with Bear Gryllis, CHALLENGE ACCEPTED, etc… even you, getting pulled in… I didn't predict all of that. And Teddy, he's the sum-up, aren't we?"

Lily pauses, and Rose is suddenly aware of how serene she looks in this light, away from the chaos and the insanity. Before she ponders more on this though, Lily continues.

"All those walls we've built up, because we were afraid. Of getting hurt, of hurting. But in the end, all they do is keep out sadness. Teddy… he told us all to call him 'Professor', even out of class, even Jamie, who liked him best. He'd always stayed aloof, you know – afraid to get close, afraid to get hurt. It made Jamie think he didn't like him anymore, and he was sadder, because, to start with, it's just scary to be in love with someone… so familiar, your best friend. But he wanted… to be brave. The potion helped, y'know?

"Scorp was always looking for girlfriends to avoid what he really wanted. Al wasn't sure what he wanted sometimes. Love's hard, and I wanted to give them a hand… I know what it feels like, y'know? Scorpius getting hit with the 'fall in love with a girl till you realise you actually like your best friend' cliché wasn't the best plan, but…" she stops to shrug, letting her arms fall carelessly to the sides.

Rose sighs contentedly, somewhat exhausted. A few moments of comfortable silence passes, before she asks, quietly, "Then… what was your fear, Lils?"

It takes the other girl a while to answer, as she studies Rose's face with a strange, new kind of intensity, eyes raking over features, as if to check for something.

"What do you think?" Lily laughs lightly, before taking Rosie's hand and capturing her lips in a kiss.

—–


End file.
